Page 247 - Failure to Triumph - Journey of A Student

bayoneted a Gurkha rifleman, triggering the start of a close-quarters knife and fire-fight, which then
escalted to a mortar and HMG duel. The Chinese troops had to signal a ceasefire just after three hours
of fighting, but later scaled Point 15450 to establish themselves there. The Gurkhas outflanked them
the next day to regain Point 15450 and the Chinese retreated across the LAC. 21 Indian soldiers were

killed in this action. The Indian government awarded Vir Chakras to Rifleman Limbu (posthumous)
and battalion commander Major K B Joshi for their gallant actions. The extent of Chinese casualties
in this skirmish is also not known.

1970s

In August 1971, India signed its Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation with the Soviet Union,
and the United States and the PRC sided with Pakistan in its December 1971 war with India.
Although China strongly condemned India, it did not carry out its veiled threat to intervene on

Pakistan’s behalf. By this time, the PRC had just replaced the Republic of China in the UN where its
representatives denounced India as being a “tool of Soviet expansionism.”

India and the PRC renewed efforts to improve relations after Indian Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi’s Congress party lost the 1977 elections to Morarji Desai’s Janata Party. The new Desai
government sought to improve long-strained relations with India and the PRC. In 1978, the Indian
Minister of External Affairs Atal Bihari Vajpayee made a landmark visit to Beijing, and both nations
officially re-established diplomatic relations in 1979. The PRC modified its pro-Pakistan stand on

Kashmir and appeared willing to remain silent on India’s absorption of Sikkim and its special
advisory relationship with Bhutan. The PRC’s leaders agreed to discuss the boundary issue, India’s
priority, as the first step to a broadening of relations. The two countries hosted each others’ news
agencies, and Mount Kailash and Mansarowar Lake in Tibet, the mythological home of the Hindu
pantheon, were opened to annual pilgrimages from India.

1980s

In 1981 PRC minister of foreign affairs Huang Hua was invited to India, where he made

complimentary remarks about India’s role in South Asia. PRC premier Zhao Ziyang concurrently
toured Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. In 1980, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi approved a
plan to upgrade the deployment of forces around the Line of Actual Control to avoid unilateral
redefinitions of the line. India also increased funds for infrastructural development in these areas.

In 1984, squads of Indian soldiers began actively patrolling the Sumdorong Chu Valley in
Arunachal Pradesh (formerly NEFA), which is north of the McMahon Line as drawn on the Simla

Treaty map but south of the ridge which India claims is meant to delineate the McMahon Line. The
Sumdorong Chu valley “seemed to lie to the north of the McMahon line; but is south of the highest
ridge in the area, and the McMahon line is meant to follow the highest points” according to the Indian
claims, while the Chinese did not recognize the McMahon Line as legitimate and were not prepared
to accept an Indian claim line even further north than that. The Indian team left the area before the
winter. In the winter of 1986, the Chinese deployed their troops to the Sumdorong Chu before the
Indian team could arrive in the summer and built a helipad at Wandung. Surprised by the Chinese